Uttara arms recovery: Investigators yet to find link of smugglers

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Md Joynal Abedin Khan :
The investigators are hunting for the arms smugglers as they could not find any link of any person in connection with the recovery of huge weapons from a canal in the city’s Uttara area.
The cops personnel, who are engagged in looking into the incident, are still in a puzzle about the motive of the keeping these huge arms in the water body, detective sources said.
The investigators are trying to find out the source of the arms and of their origin country, they added.
Even the investigators themselves are surprised about the existence of such huge arms in the canal despite unprecedented security measures in the area by the law enforcers.
But they are almost sure that these arms were brought in the city for making a sabtage to create panic among the people. But their ill-motive has been failed, they said.
They suspected that different national and internaltional gangs were trying
to tarnish the image of the country by smuggling arms.
It is to be noted that police recovered a huge cache of firearms and ammunition from a canal in the capital’s Uttara on June 18 and 19 respectively. The seizure included 97 foreign pistols, 1,060 bullets, 497 magazines, 10 bayonets and 188 cleaning rods. The glock pistols of 7.62 mm bore, and bullets of the pistol and SMG, were intact and in good condition. These were kept in eight travel bags on the canal bed.
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit has taken the investigation duty of the incident, said an officer of the enquiry team.
The CTTC members have already interrogated seven witnesses and local persons, he said.
The arms were carried out by a black colour car of Pajero Company without a number plate and left the spot by throwing the arms in the canal, the DB official said.
The arms were kept at the canal near the Mirpur Beribadh Roads to hand over them to the gangs in the name of catching fish in the canal by dodging the law enforcers and local people, he said.
The plan was reportedly taken by two members of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) of India to create anarchy in the country, said sources of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
The arms were probably made by China and came to Chapainawabganj frontier by crossing the land-boundaries of Bangladesh-India-Pakistan, they said.
They suspected that several powerful criminal gangs from home and abroad were involved with the arms smuggling as no arms trader imported such as huge weapons at a time in the history of the country.
After inspecting the used arms, they claimed that only professional terrors and members of Jamaatul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and other militant organizations generally used such arms and ammunition.
DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah claimed that a ‘vested interest group’ which is trying to grab state power by creating instability, might have dumped the arms there.
Bidhan Tripura, Deputy Commissioner of Uttara Division, said ‘We had intelligence that a huge amount of arms and ammunition were brought near the canal by a car on the day.”
Asked about when and where the arms were removed from the canal site, he told The New Nation, ‘I don’t want to tell where these have been kept.”
Turag Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Abir Mohammad Hossain said that two GDs were filed with the police station in this connection.
A six-member probe body led by Sheikh Nazmul Alam, Deputy Commissioner of Detective Branch (Uttara Division), was formed to investigate the incident.
The member-secretary is Khandaker Nurunnabai, the Deputy Commissioner and the Chief of Serious Crime Division of the DB. Other members are Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Ashiqur Rahman, Mahfuzul Islam, Golam Mostafa Rasel and Assitant Commissioner (AC) Sumit Jwarder.
DB’s Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) has been appointed to investigate the two general diaries (GDs) in this connection.
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